WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump on Tuesday discussed a joint venture investing up to $500 billion in artificial intelligence infrastructure by a new partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank.
The new entity, Stargate, will begin building data centers and producing electricity necessary for the future development of the sector. rapidly evolving AI in Texas, according to the White House. The initial investment is expected to be $100 billion and could reach five times that amount.
“That’s a lot of money and great people,” Trump said, adding that it was a “resounding statement of confidence in America’s potential” under his new administration.
Trump, newly inaugurated in the White House, was accompanied by Masayoshi Son from SoftBank, Sam Altman from OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle. All three praised Trump for helping make the project possible, even though construction has already begun and the project dates back to 2024.
“This will be the most important project of this era,” said Altman, CEO of OpenAI.
Ellison noted that the data centers are already under construction and 10 of them are under construction so far. The Oracle president suggested that the project was also linked to digital health records and would facilitate the treatment of diseases such as cancer by possibly developing a personalized vaccine.
“This is the beginning of the golden age,” Son said, referring to Trump’s declaration that the United States would experience a “golden age” with him in the White House.
Son, a billionaire based in Japan, had already committed in December to investing 100 billion dollars of projects in the United States over the next four years. He previously pledged to invest $50 billion ahead of Trump’s first term, which included a significant stake in struggling office-sharing company WeWork.
While Trump has used similar announcements to show that his presidency is boosting the economy, there were already expectations of massive construction of data centers and power plants needed for the development of AI, which promises to increase the productivity by automating work, but also the risk of job displacement if poorly implemented.
Initial plans for Stargate date back to the Biden administration. Tech media outlet The Information first reported on the project in March 2024. OpenAI has long relied on Microsoft data centers to build its AI systems, but it has increasingly expressed interest in building its own data centers.
OpenAI wrote in a letter to the Biden administration’s Commerce Department last fall that planning and permitting such projects “can be lengthy and complex, particularly for energy infrastructure.”
Other partners in the project include Microsoft, investor MGX, and chipmakers Arm and NVIDIA, according to separate statements from Oracle and OpenAI.
The push to build data centers predates Trump’s presidency. Last October, the financial company Blackstone estimates that the United States would see $1 trillion invested in data centers over five years, and an additional $1 trillion committed internationally.
These investment estimates suggest that much of the new capital will flow through Stargate, as OpenAI has established itself as an industry leader with the 2022 launch of its ChatGPT, a chatbot that has captured the public imagination with its ability to answer complex questions and perform basic operations. tasks.
The White House has focused on facilitating the development of new electricity generation in anticipation of the development of AI, knowing that the United States is engaged in a competitive race against China to develop technology of increasingly adopted by companies.
Still, the regulatory outlook for AI remains somewhat uncertain, with Trump rolling back Monday the 2023 ordinance signed by then-President Joe Biden to create security standards and watermarking of AI-generated content, among other goals, hoping to put guardrails on the technology’s possible risks for national security and economic well-being.
CBS News first reported that Trump would announce an investment in AI.
Trump supporter Elon Musk worth more than $400 billion, was an early investor in OpenAI, but has since challenged its move to for-profit status and launched its own AI company, xAI. Musk is also in charge of the “Department of Government Efficiency” officially created by Trump on Monday with the aim of reducing government spending.
Trump announced in January a $20 billion investment by DAMAC Properties in the United Arab Emirates to build AI-related data centers.
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AP reporter Matt O’Brien contributed to this report from Providence, Rhode Island.
